For small items I use my pouncer.For making the marks onto cloth, or anything else.

Let me describe it. It keeps you from having to outline your areas with pencil...it works on fabric or paper.

Put your pattern down...and pounce the outline.

Here is how you make your pouncer...

Baby sock With powder inside. Or make a similar bootie style thing. With an old sock kind of fabric. {we all have extras of those...why does the washer eat them?? }

For other colors than white for my darks, I grind up colored chalk. I currently have a white and yellow.

Hold your pattern down, and pounce the edges. No tracing...then you know where to cut or how you wish for things. If it is wrong...just sweep off the chalk, and start over.

Fill your pouncer, and tie the top end. That way you can refill as needed on your pouncer bag. Than smack, smack, smack..to get your outline where to cut, or where placement will be. And it will all wipe off in the end.

I am at a loss to understand this method of marking. How is a chalk-filled baby sock going to deliver a fine line to follow in the manner that a pencil does? is there something else inside the sock you forgot to tell us about that delivers the chalk in a specific line? Really like this idea in general, just cannot understand it.

This sounds similar to how artists in the Renaissance would transfer their cartoons for frescos onto the walls. They would poke holes along the drawn outline on the paper, then once up against the wall use charcoal dust in a similar way you mention along the lines to get kind of a dotted line outline on the wall.